Chaos in Washington: Musk and Trump disagree on mass layoffs of civil servants – Rezazade

The vice president of the Iranian opposition in Washington, Ali Reza Rezazade, indicates that the Donald Trump administration has told the heads of federal agencies that they can ignore Elon Musk’s public order to fire employees who have not sent final reports on their work for the past week.

This signaled a rift between the White House and the billionaire, who has significant influence on the reduction of the 2.3 million-strong US federal apparatus.

According to three sources familiar with the matter, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which acts as the government’s human resources service, conveyed this decision in an internal call with the heads of human resources of federal agencies.

“Agency heads themselves decide what action to take with employees who have not responded,” the OPM memorandum said. It also states that managers can exclude certain categories of employees from this process and must inform OPM of the reasons for such a decision.

Despite this, Trump hinted that those who did not respond could still be fired. Musk, in turn, wrote on the social network X that employees would be given “one more chance” to submit reports before they were fired.

The situation caused a wave of confusion among civil servants. Already on Saturday, Musk announced that federal employees would receive a letter demanding a list of their tasks for the week. He said that those who did not respond by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday would automatically be considered to have resigned of their own free will.

In response, OPM sent an official letter to millions of employees, including federal judges and congressional staff. However, the letter no longer mentioned possible layoffs.

Officials from various departments have become confused by the guidelines, unsure how to apply them to their organizations. Some agencies have even advised their employees not to respond, fearing that OPM is collecting sensitive or sensitive information.

Interestingly, the OPM memorandum itself states that the presidential administration is also exempt from these requirements.

Meanwhile, Musk’s policy of reducing the state apparatus has already caused serious resistance in the judiciary and among politicians. The federal watchdog on Monday declared several dismissals of civil servants who had not yet completed their probationary periods illegal and demanded that these decisions be suspended for 45 days.

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), events took on an even more absurd character: a video began to be broadcast on screens in the halls of the government building, in which Donald Trump allegedly kisses Elon Musk’s toes, and above the frame was the inscription: “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING”. Some agency employees suggested that the video could have been created by artificial intelligence. This chaos demonstrates the real state of affairs in the Trump administration and the role of Musk, who is trying to carry out a large-scale purge in the US public sector.

There is a serious split within the conservative administration on issues of governance of the country. The use of Musk’s business methods in the field of public administration creates chaos and misunderstanding.

The question facing the United States now: will the government allow the billionaire and his allies to break state institutions at will?

There is little time left for the world to see whether America can maintain its democratic principles or slide into the chaos of authoritarianism and corporate rule.